Security Operation Center (SOC) is a facility that houses an information security team responsible for monitoring and analyzing an organization’s security posture on an ongoing basis. The SOC team’s goal is to detect, analyze and respond to cyber security incidents using a combination of technology solutions and a strong set of processes. Security operations centers are typically staffed with security analysts and engineers as well as managers who oversee security operations. SOC staff work close with organizational incident response teams to ensure security issues are addressed quickly upon discovery.

Rather than being focused on developing security strategy, designing security architecture or implementing protective measures, the SOC team is responsible for the ongoing, operational component of enterprise information security. Security operations center staff is comprised primarily of security analysts who work together to detect, analyze, respond to, report on and prevent cyber security incidents. Additional capabilities of some SOCs can include advanced forensic analysis, cryptanalysis and malware reverse engineering to analyze incidents.

The first step in establishing an organization’s SOC is to clearly define a strategy that incorporates business-specific goals from various departments as well as input and support from executives. Once the strategy has been developed, the infrastructure required to support that strategy must be implemented. The security operations center also monitors networks and endpoints for vulnerabilities in order to protect sensitive data and comply with industry or government regulations.

The key benefit of having a security operations center is the improvement of security incident detection through continuous monitoring and analysis of data activity. By analyzing this activity across an organization’s networks, endpoints, servers and databases around the clock, SOC teams are critical in ensuring timely detection and response of security incidents. The 24/7 monitoring provided by a SOC gives organizations an advantage to defend against incidents and intrusions regardless of source, time of day, or attack type. Security operations center helps to close the gap between attackers’ time to compromise and enterprises’ time to detection, and stay on top of the threats.